I purchased something from a well-known endurance products company. The product was really bad and had an element that I think others would like to know about before they purchased it themselves.
The product is not returnable.
I posted a review on their website and they never posted it. My review wasn’t mean. It was simply factual about the component I found problematic.
I followed up with customer service and they ignored me.The reviews shown for the product are only 4 and 5 stars.
Reviews on a retail site or reviews on the manufacture site? If the later, at least they probably got the feedback and might use it to improve their product.
AFAIK there are no laws around user reviews. Reviews on manufacture sites are biased. Reviews on Amazon can be full of falsehoods. There is a whole cottage industry of writing fake good reviews for your products and fake bad reviews for your competitors. I somewhat trust the reviews on specialty retail sites like REI more than the Amazon reviews, but take it all with a grain of salt. On top of all that, the majority of the time people bother posting reviews is when they have issues with a product (like yourself), and yet most products have 4 or 5 star ratings.
Professional reviews are only to be trusted if you follow the reviewer and understand their history. Many are heavily influenced by straight up cash payments or other second order effects. Even those that try to be honest have their own little individual biases.
Web forums like this or Reddit are probably the most credible sources.
Per the other poster, online reviews are a shitshow. Even so-called “verified” ones. Practically speaking nothing is violated except butthurt.
I’ve had mixed results in posting my own. I had a bad experience with a sleeping bag, and threw it under the bus in a review, and to their credit, the manufacturer posted my review.
I had a really bad experience with a bike hitch rack - while on the freeway if I hit a small bump it would regularly drop down to “loading” position even though it wasn’t anywhere near maximum load, and I had properly verified the mechanism to change the position was properly “locked.” Needless to say it’s terrifying on the freeway to hear a big “ka-chunk,” look back, and not see any bikes in through the rear window. (the bikes were always fine, just out of view, still it’s a horrible thing to happen, and forced me to pull over to the breakdown lane on busy freeways to fix).
That manufacturer of that bike rack did not post my review.
Especially if you post a review on the company’s website, this should be entirely expected. It’s bogus that the customer service department isn’t responding to you at all, and that would be one of the things that would turn me off of a company right away. But if I write a negative review on a company’s website, I’m not really expecting it to go live on their website. I’m just hoping someone in customer service sees it and changes something. That site is one of their primary advertising and point of sale venues. Why would they post derogatory information?
If you look at the back cover of a book before you buy it, you’re only going to see glowing statements from reviews. If you see a commercial for a new movie, they’re only going to post favorable snippets from reviewers. That’s how advertising works, and customer reviews on a website are definitely part of the advertising plan, not part of a plan for transparency and honest information.
If it’s not carried on amazon, I’ve increasingly turned to search strings like:
XYZ review reddit
Reddit can be a bit of a cesspool, but there’s a subreddit for everything, and you’ve got a higher chance of finding truthful negative reviews there than on the manufacturer’s website.
So (again, if it’s not on amazon) if you can find those reviews on reddit, then by extension that’s where you should leave those reviews to help future purchasers.
If it’s not carried on amazon, I’ve increasingly turned to search strings like:
XYZ review reddit
Reddit can be a bit of a cesspool, but there’s a subreddit for everything, and you’ve got a higher chance of finding truthful negative reviews there than on the manufacturer’s website.
So (again, if it’s not on amazon) if you can find those reviews on reddit, then by extension that’s where you should leave those reviews to help future purchasers.
Depends on whether you’re asking me if amazon is full of shill 5* reviews, or whether negative reviews are removed. Seems like standard practice for “legit” companies is to respond to negative reviews, and then to bury them with their 5* shills (they tend to only care about their rating). But at least they’re still there.
Or am I out of the loop? Do companies have ways to remove negative reviews on Amazon?
It depends on how the website characterizes the ratings. On the one hand, to use Slowguy’s example of a book, no one would reasonably expect that is a complete list of all comments/evaluations as of the time the book was published. There isn’t room for that and the comments are not depicted as some sort of representative survey. On the other hand, if the website implies the stars are sort of a quantitative/representative summary of ratings received, then omitting anything below 4 stars is misleading. For example, if they said “average rating is 4.5 starsâ€, that would be misleading. I’m not saying it is necessarily false advertising in the sense of being legally actionable, but it’s deceptive.
There are numerous ways that companies influence their Amazon reviews. They can’t remove bad reviews, but they can write fake bad reviews of competitors. They can also down vote useful reviews and upvote their own fake reviews so they rise to the top.
Think of the basic psychology of reviews. The majority of people will only review a product if they are angry or are paid. Just human nature. Yet the vast majority of reviews on Amazon and other sites are positive.
If it’s not carried on amazon, I’ve increasingly turned to search strings like:
XYZ review reddit
Reddit can be a bit of a cesspool, but there’s a subreddit for everything, and you’ve got a higher chance of finding truthful negative reviews there than on the manufacturer’s website.
So (again, if it’s not on amazon) if you can find those reviews on reddit, then by extension that’s where you should leave those reviews to help future purchasers.
There are numerous ways that companies influence their Amazon reviews. They can’t remove bad reviews, but they can write fake bad reviews of competitors. They can also down vote useful reviews and upvote their own fake reviews so they rise to the top.
Think of the basic psychology of reviews. The majority of people will only review a product if they are angry or are paid. Just human nature. Yet the vast majority of reviews on Amazon and other sites are positive.
No argument there. I have a friend whose business lived and died by their amazon rating. I don’t think they did unscrupulous stuff (i.e. they actually cared and were honest), but they watched their rating with an all-consuming passion.
There are numerous ways that companies influence their Amazon reviews. They can’t remove bad reviews, but they can write fake bad reviews of competitors. They can also down vote useful reviews and upvote their own fake reviews so they rise to the top.
Think of the basic psychology of reviews. The majority of people will only review a product if they are angry or are paid. Just human nature. Yet the vast majority of reviews on Amazon and other sites are positive.
Hmmm. I’ve probably written 30-40 reviews on Amazon and I can’t remember writing a bad review. Amazon often prompts people to write reviews shortly after receiving the product and I often do it.
I also write reviews about RV parks when we’re traveling in our motorhome and don’t pull any punches if things don’t measure up. When things are great I tell about it and when they’re not so great I write about that too.
I left the company and product out of my OP initially to get a generic take from the LR.
The product is Seat Saver by Hammer.
My review said the smell was pretty bad. It made my basement smell and lingered in my clothes even after washing. I thought others would like to know that about the product.
For the record, Hammer has left many reviews up that says it smells great.
It was so bad to me, threw it our after just three uses.
I disagree with others in this thread that it’s OK for a company to censor reviews. If you are going to have a review process, it needs to be truthful. There’s no difference to me between a company falsifying reviews and censoring.
I’ve been trudting Amazon reviews for years until I was told that they don;t necessarily publish a customer review if it’s negative/low scoring.
So far all my negative Amazon reviews have been posted, though sometimes with a lag time.
Amazon, at least for products that are not Amazon’s own, has a strong interest in honest reviews. It loses a lot of money in returns and refunds, and probably would rather have good product get properly promoted over bad product.
I purchased something from a well-known endurance products company. The product was really bad and had an element that I think others would like to know about before they purchased it themselves.
The product is not returnable.
I posted a review on their website and they never posted it. My review wasn’t mean. It was simply factual about the component I found problematic.
I followed up with customer service and they ignored me.The reviews shown for the product are only 4 and 5 stars.
I rule this a violation.
What say you?
I always ALWAYS go to the 1 start reviews to get a sense of just how shyte a product is. If you see consistent reviews complaining about 1 or 2 things in particular, I will steer clear. But if there is just 1 or 2 complaining about shipping/packaging or the occasional review about how it broke, that’s no biggie to me. look for the patterns in the reviews. Never ever go by the good reviews.
I always ALWAYS go to the 1 start reviews to get a sense of just how shyte a product is. If you see consistent reviews complaining about 1 or 2 things in particular, I will steer clear. But if there is just 1 or 2 complaining about shipping/packaging or the occasional review about how it broke, that’s no biggie to me. look for the patterns in the reviews. Never ever go by the good reviews.
I also always check bad reviews first. I know that companies can hire people to make positive reviews. They would never write bad feedback, but it can be left by people with real experience. And I noticed that it is easier to find both good and bad reviews on online review platforms like Trustpilot, for instance.
But still, I think that there are companies that worry about their reputation, work on their business growth, follow the online review trends, and pay attention to all reviews and complaints. At least, I hope so.
Yup read the neg. reviews first.
Also like to read the manufacturers reply, Some of them have turned me around about the neg. review. Some are clear cookie cutter responses, and a few have turned me off the product (to be clear based on how they responded to negative feedback).
No I don’t believe any company posts all the neg reviews, I dont even believe if they show neg its all of them.
I always ALWAYS go to the 1 start reviews to get a sense of just how shyte a product is. If you see consistent reviews complaining about 1 or 2 things in particular, I will steer clear. But if there is just 1 or 2 complaining about shipping/packaging or the occasional review about how it broke, that’s no biggie to me. look for the patterns in the reviews. Never ever go by the good reviews.
I also always check bad reviews first. I know that companies can hire people to make positive reviews. They would never write bad feedback, but it can be left by people with real experience. And I noticed that it is easier to find both good and bad reviews on online review platforms like Trustpilot, for instance.
But still, I think that there are companies that worry about their reputation, work on their business growth, follow the online review trends, and pay attention to all reviews and complaints. At least, I hope so.
I hate to tell you, but there is a lot of accusations on fake negative reviews as well. The people who flood their own products with positive reviews also hire people to flood their competition with negative reviews.
